The present invention relates generally to magnetic memory devices, and more specifically, to thermally assisted MRAM devices that provide low thermal conductivity.
Magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM) is a non-volatile computer memory (NVRAM) technology. Unlike conventional RAM chip technologies, MRAM data is not stored as electric charge or current flows, but by magnetic storage elements. The elements are formed from two ferromagnetic plates, each of which can hold a magnetic field, separated by a thin insulating layer. One of the two plates is a reference magnet set to a particular polarity; the other plate's field can be changed to match that of an external field to store memory and is termed the “free magnet” or “free-layer”. This configuration is known as a magnetic tunnel junction and is the simplest structure for a MRAM bit. A memory device is built from a grid of such “cells.” In some configurations of MRAM, such as the type further discussed herein, both the reference and free layers of the magnetic tunnel junctions can be switched using an external magnetic field.